


children of nyx

by Anonymous



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, there are a lot of friendship tags good god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27318193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Of course Tommy knew, on a dimly lit level of his brain generally reserved for doomsday scenarios and religious holidays, that he was the only one who still truly hated Eret.---A little redemption arc never hurt anyone. Or, Apate, Nemesis, Eris and Oizys watch the day fall away.
Relationships: Eret & Floris | Fundy & Niki | Nihachu & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Eret & Niki | Nihachu, Eret & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Eret & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Niki | Nihachu & Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Niki | Nihachu & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), No Romantic Relationship(s), Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 7
Kudos: 163
Collections: Anonymous





	children of nyx

Tommy was not often lost for words.

It was a defence mechanism, if he was being completely honest; almost no horror, he found, survived contact with his personal deluge of furious proclamations and sputtered snide remarks. Sprawled tiredly over the ridge of Pogtopia's hillside locale with Tubbo and Niki, listening to one of the real discs and watching sunset bloom over the horizon, he truly had nothing to say. And that was the worst part.

Not so long ago this very setup would have surpassed even his wildest dreams. He had both of his wonderful secretaries home, self-proven and battle-hardened, and the music that used to be his world. Well. Time flies, when you're having fun.

The piece ended, as was its wont. Nobody got up to retrieve the precious disc. The strange companionable quiet of twilight, such as it was, was somewhat undermined by the occasional sudden laugh from below. Every single time it made Tubbo flinch. In his defence, Tommy thought with cynical half-sympathy, he had literally just been executed by one of the scheming bastards themselves. Suit or no suit, that was always a lot to deal with. 

Yawning with faux cheer, Tommy tried briefly to only think about the communicator under his cold fingers. Distraction wasn't worth this cost; its public channel painted a grim picture of the festival's aftermath. What a fucking mess. Scrolling up past the shell-shocked infighting over cats and democracy, he bit his lip and slowly memorised the longest list of consecutive deaths in the server's illustrious history. The very last line gave him pause.

Because of course, kneeling on the ground silently to his left, there was Niki herself. They hadn't spoken properly for a very long time. That and all the sappy bullshit was never quite Tommy's vibe, but even he could tell that she was a new and inescapable kind of terrified. Being hunted, imprisoned and killed for the crime of seizing independence was a pattern he knew all too well. By now even Niki's distinctive L'Manberg coat had run its course; she stared out blankly over the forest in simple flour-dusted dungarees, wet mascara picking out her cheekbones in two macabre black channels. She smelled like her bakery, like fresh-pressed sugar and old smoke. Like a certain old van. Underneath it all was the same iron tang that hung around Tubbo, the bitter stink of choosing to come back. For a self-proclaimed doctor, Ponk had been brutal.

All three of them were running out of time. This he knew like breathing, like loyalty, like screaming.

Though he had just seen first-hand how easily breath could be snuffed out. Though he had just betrayed his beloved, absolutely batshit mentor in the name of what was right. Though he truly had nothing left to say.

Leaves rustled behind Tubbo's bowed head, almost imperceptible if not for the soft sniffling that accompanied the sound. A familiar face marched stiffly out from between the trees.

Tommy drew his sword, let the stone-faced, tight-lipped kind of anger creep up his arm and into his posture. Never before had he willingly attempted such a level of self-control, but after everything with Wilbur? Rushing in blind and furious didn't feel like such a good idea anymore.

" _Dear friend_ ," Eret said, quiet, tired, and Niki froze in place. " _I hope this letter finds you well. By the time you will find it I will be long gone, so don't come looking for me._ " What the fuck were they talking about? Was it some horrible trick, to hurt her even more than Schlatt and Wilbur already had?

The false king just looked lost. He drew from beneath his mantle a book, flipped to a random page, and read aloud from it. " _People are looking for me,_ " they glanced towards the group from behind those damn cowardly sunglasses, " _and I don't know what will happen if they find me._ "

She staggered uphill in ardent desperation, ignoring Tommy's combative stance completely, and Niki buried her face in his shoulder without a word. "I looked everywhere, I was thousands of blocks away-I...I thought you were dead," he murmured into her hair. "Really and properly dead." Then surely Tubbo wasn't the only archivist among them. There was something perversely comforting to Tommy about the idea of his words, his deeds, neatly catalogued over pages and pages of Niki's spidery handwriting.

Suspicion bubbled up into his lungs nonetheless and refused to leave. This wasn't right. Eret, in Tommy's sprawling personal mythology, was a fundamentally bad person. Just as resolutely as Wilbur had been a good one, until this week.

"So did I," chuckled Niki wetly into the advancing silence. Ugh. Adults. She turned to the boys, who were both preoccupied picking their jaws up from the ground, and smiled through new tears. For the next few minutes they sat and trembled in her eyes as she explained Wilbur's awful break. What possessed Tommy to keep staring like a moron, even when Tubbo sharply elbowed him, he didn't know. "We will figure something out. As long as we work together. I know you two don't like Eret, but he has been _so_ kind to me-"

"I actually don't really care," Tubbo interrupted, though in a kinder tone than the words implied. He was being uncharacteristically stalwart in the wake of his own impromptu funeral. It suited him. You didn't argue with someone who was more bandage than boy, someone who offered his opinions like scripture. You just listened. "If you trust them, I trust them. Right, Tommy?"

A beat. Techno's raspy cackle drifted up from the ravine and wound itself sinuously around his throat. He gulped and felt the eyes on him narrow. In concern? In disappointment? Oh, fuck. "Tommy?"

"Right." The tone he spoke in was low and steady. Privately, he simply didn't understand how the king fit into this alliance at all. Only Niki's words protected him. Of course Tommy knew, on a dimly lit level of his brain generally reserved for doomsday scenarios and religious holidays, that he was the only one who still truly hated Eret. Wilbur had flown so acrobatically off the handle that he probably had some bullshit spiel prepared about the intelligence of their betrayal. Fundy saw her as the Dream SMP's likable powerless figurehead, all grudges eroded by greed and time and any opportunity to undermine Pogtopian authority. Thunder hadn't even met the bastard until after the war had ended, and harboured a gross fanboyish kind of respect for him accordingly.

Which left Tommy alone to his rage. But he swallowed it, reluctantly, in lieu of one more question. "How did you figure out where Pogtopia is? That's, like, legitimately a matter of national security."

"Oh, I knew from the beginning," Eret said nonchalantly, tapping his nose to make the others smile, and the sound Tommy made in response was neither reproducible nor printable. "Bad and I stumbled across it weeks ago. You think Techno gave a shit? I threw him a baked potato and he just left us alone." Of course he did.

Of bloody _course_ he did. Which meant that, given every chance, Eret had decided not to betray them. Again. They had helped Niki when a whole nation had denounced her. That didn't mean Tommy trusted him, but...well. The group's options weren't exactly unlimited. He strode over and readjusted their crown where the journey had knocked it all lopsided.

"C'mon. Pull yourself together," he told Eret, forcing his old grin into shape with momentary difficulty. "Can't have my friends looking like they've just fallen out of a tree. Bad for business, I tell you." After a single stunned moment, Tubbo giggled in tentative agreement. That was that. All four of them, for once, were on the same side. Despite his misgivings, that felt right.

And besides, it was worth it, if only for what happened next. Because then, for the first time since the election, Tommy watched Niki smile.

**Author's Note:**

> hi! according to ao3 statistics, please leave a comment :)


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